Our mission is to change lives.

The Life We Live is an educational resource for youth and adults. Our purpose is to prevent and reduce drug abuse and alcohol abuse among young people and adults by informing you about the risks and consequences associated with the use of drugs and alcohol.

Creative Director

Marianne Joyce provides project management, creative direction, and website production through Joyce Planning and Development, a consulting firm based in Gallup. Marianne can be reached at mjoyce@joyceplanning.com.

Webmaster

DiamondHeart Studio provides our web services. You can reach them at webmaster@diamondheart.com.

DiamondHeart Studio specializes in web design, web application development, and all your web hosting needs.

Dynamic Accretion

Dynamic Accretion is owned by Jeffrey Jamon and managed by Carlton Jamon providing layout designing, graphic designing and internet services including website designing, development, and hosting. In this project Robbin Lasiloo designed the graphics for this site. Jeffrey Jamon developed the coding and design of this site. The site's design was created with continuous consultation between Marianne Joyce, Robbin Lasillo, and Jeffrey Jamon. DynamicAccretion.com

Kristian Olson Art and Design

Kristian Olson was the art director who did all the art and design work and website production for the original website. His creative genius still can be seen in Brandon's Story, which appears in its original form. Kristian can be reached through his firm, Kristian Olson Art and Design, at kristian@kristianolson.org

Joseph Talley and JT Studios

JT Studios created the artwork and Flash animation for Shenany's Story.  HE can be reached via the website for JT Studios.

Media 101

The Media 101 program began at Gallup Central High as a video production class in 1998. Today, Media 101 has grown to include a journalism program which produces a newspaper called "The Fast Times." This paper is distributed regionally and has tremendous support in the community. Media 101 is now producing radio broadcasts that will be aired on Gallup's National Public Radio affiliate, KGLP, at 91.7 FM, and Media 101 soon will be producing a regular radio show.

Our Story

The Life We Live originally was created during the period August to December, 2000, by a group of fourteen teenagers, young men and women aged 14 to 17 who were on probation and enrolled in a community corrections program at the Connections, Inc., agency in Gallup, New Mexico. They met every week to plan the website project to prevent and reduce substance abuse among youth. They received community service credit for their participation in the creative group. They did not want to have thier names on the website. Although they didn't want to take credit for it, they picked the website name, planned and prioritized all the content, wrote Brandon's Story, and made virtually all the creative decisions involved in developing the original website. The site went live on June 19, 2001.

During the spring of 2002, a group of 30 youth, 10th-graders to 12-graders aged 15 to 20 enrolled in internet publishing classes taught by Jason Sovick at Gallup High School, created a new plan for website development which included a critique of the existing site and a business plan to increase the number of site visits and repeat visits and the time spent per visit. The first priority of the business plan was to re-design the site, resulting in the new design created by Dynamic Accretion.

In December, 2002, a group of young men and women aged 15 to 18 incarcerated at the McKinley County Juvenile Detention Center participated in creative writing workshops where they created the character dialogue you see throughout the site. They gave their names as follows:

Thanks To

The McKinley County, New Mexico, DWI Planning Council sponsors The Life We Live with grants from the State of New Mexico. Paul Campos, the McKinley County DWI Coordinater, provides support and encouragement every step of the way. Technical assistance in facilitating the creative group that produced the original website was provided by Kristie Lucero of Connections. Artwork to help the group visualize some of the characters in Brandon's story was provided by Johnny Blue Eyes, Jr. Additional technical assistance on website content development was provided by Bill Pearson of Connections, who serves as the West Central Region Representative of the New Mexico Alcohol and Drug Abuse Counselors Association.

The Media 101 Program has been highly successful at Gallup Central high School due to the inspiration, support and co-operation of the DWI Planning Council and the Combating Underage Drinking Program.

Permissions

X-Games logo and site link are used with permission of ESPN, per Agreement of November 21, 2001.